Gender mainstreaming and the framing of women's rights in Europe: The contribution of the Council of Europe

Drawing on published materials from the Committee of Ministers, Assembly and expert working groups of the Council of Europe, this paper investigates the distinctive contribution made to the framing of women's rights over the last two decades by this regional organisation, which recent studies of the `Europeanisation' of public policies have largely neglected. Elements of congruence are identified between the major mobilising themes of second wave feminism and the Council's emphasis on protecting individual rights, and its sensitivity to the incompleteness and shortcomings of `actually existing' democratic institutions and practices. The relative openness of its agenda-setting processes is also underlined. The Council's flag ship policies for women are shown to have centred since the mid-1980s on a `politics of presence' frame and the (contested) concept of `parity democracy', and the tensions between these and the more recent turn to gender mainstreaming are explored. But the paper also points to the Council's role in diffusing into the E.U. governance arena women's claims to equal participation and presence in the policy process, and notes recent French and U.K. legislation as testifying to the continuing salience of these claims at the national level. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Australian National Council of Women

This article describes the political style and practice of the Australian National Council of Women (ANCW) as it developed up to 1975. The historical significance of this lies in the fact that, during the first three quarters of the last century, the ANCW was effectively the peak body representing the great majority of women's groups in this country: groups whose activities focused on politics, religion, morality, health, education, the media, philanthropy and also peace, women's economic and political rights, child welfare and legal reform. The Council spoke on behalf of these constituents to all levels of government, and internationally through the International Council of Women. It generally did not represent women associated with trade unions and the Australian Labor Party, and the politically active women amongst its leaders tended to be members of the Liberal Party. The conduct of the Council avoided party politics; its leaders co-operated with trade unionists on issues of women's rights such as equal pay, and worked as willingly with Labor governments as with non-Labor ones. An assessment of the effectiveness of the Council's political activities is therefore an assessment of the political practice and achievements of mainstream Australian feminism before the advent of radical feminism in the 1970s.     

Bridging cross-cultural feminisms: annie besant and women's rights in England and India, 1874-1933

Abstract

Annie Besant was a Victorian radical whose outspoken views included advocacy of women's rights and opposition to British imperial policies. In her mid-forties she went to live in India. Contesting British attempts to Westernize Indian society, Besant found herself in the seemingly anomalous position of defending traditional Indian patriarchy and resisting efforts to reform the status of Indian women. Such conservatism brought on Besant criticism not only from Western liberals and Christian missionaries, but also from many Indian social reformers. When she gradually shifted her views and voiced her support for Indian women's rights, Indian nationalists condemned her as a British imperialist. The conflict between loyalty to national heritage and opposition to traditional patriarchy is one that colonized women have commonly experienced. By examining how an anti-imperialist British feminist responded to the question of women's reform in India, this paper offers another perspective on the complexities of this dilemma.     

The Conflicting Interests of Women's Organizations and the League of Nations on the Question of Married Women's Nationality in the 1930s

This article investigates the question of legal equality in citizenship and nationality in the inter-war years. The first conference for the codification of international law was hosted by the League of Nations in The Hague in 1930. One of the topics of the conference was married women's nationality, and international women's organizations did everything in their power to persuade the conference that married women deserved to be treated equally to non-married women and to men. Women lobbied the League, but they were ultimately unsuccessful. The study highlights the conflicting aims of a movement struggling for social and political change and the official aims of an international organization. Whereas previous research has focused on the actions of the women's organizations, this article directs its interest towards the interaction between the League of Nations and the women's organizations. In questions regarding women's rights and claims for equality the League of Nations adapted an overly cautious, even conservative, position. However, the article shows that the international discourse provided arguments and documents useful in national struggles. This will be illustrated by the debate on independent nationality in the Swedish feminist press.     

Woman Ikat Raet Long Human Raet O No? Women's Rights,Human Rights and Domestic Violence in Vanuatu

There has been much recent debate about women's rights and their relation to human rights. Debates about domestic violence in Vanuatu are situated in this global frame but also in a regional and historical context dominated by the relation between kastom (tradition) and Christianity. This article depicts the dynamics of a conference on Violence and the Family in Vanuatu held in Port Vila in 1994, in terms of the competing claims of universal human rights and cultural relativism. The allegedly western character of human rights which focus on the individual and civil and political rights is often contrasted with the non-western stress on collectivities and the rights to economic development and self-determination. These sorts of ideological oppositions in international politics reverberate in domestic politics as well, and especially in those which situate women and men as subjects in conflict, as they are in many domestic disputes.     

女性非正规就业的影响因素研究 ——基于中国社会状况综合调查的实证分析

系统考察女性劳动者选择非正规就业的因素,不仅对揭示其非正规就业选择的机理具有重要意义,而且对其权益保护也具有深远影响.本研究基于中国社会状况综合调查(CSS)数据,分析女性非正规就业的影响因素,并考察影响非正规就业女性选择不同就业身份和职业类型的因素.研究结果表明:非正规就业已经成为女性非农就业的主要途径;户籍等个体特...     

embodying memory: women and the legacy of the military government in Chile

The article argues that the prohibition of abortion in Chile, other than when the mother's life is in danger, is a form of human rights violation targeting women specifically. The Pro-Birth Policy was established in Pinochet's Chile as a response to the previous government's attempts, under Allende, to encourage family planning and to educate and inform women about their choices. This had been done to put an end to the increase in back-street abortions with the inevitable toll on women's lives. Pinochet's regime reversed these women-oriented family planning policies, and criminalized abortion, on the basis of costs to the state and, more importantly, the need to increase the birth rate for reasons of national security. Women's bodies were used by the Pinochet regime, both by sexual violence and torture, and by the denial of women's reproductive and sexual rights, as a means to impose discipline and order on society. The fact that this is still not acknowledged in the construction of a collective memory indicates that the issue has not yet been resolved in democratic Chile.     

影响女性生育二孩意愿的因素预测及女性权益保护 —— 基于马尔科夫链模型

在全面放开二孩的政策背景下,女性的生育意愿受到越来越多的关注,影响女性生育二孩意愿的因素和女性权益的保护问题,已经成为社会关注的热点。本文通过发放问卷收集数据,应用马尔科夫模型分析预测影响生育意愿的因素和选择影响生育意愿因素之间的转移概率。通过概率推测出女性身体健康为影响生育意愿的最重要因素,其次为经济因素,与以往研究相比,经济因素不再是面对生育问题时考虑的最重要因素,新时代的生育观点已经发生改变,身体健康状况和女性的权益保护备受关注。根据模型的分析结果提出:女性权益适度保护;加强顶层设计,完善二胎配套措施;大力推动诚信服务业的发展,营造环境友好型工作氛围等相关政策建议。     

Women,international law and international institutions: The case of the United Nations

This final article considers the evolution of women's rights concepts and mechanisms within the United Nations. Gaer writes about this subject both as an historian of and a longstanding activist for women's human rights. She provides a critical history of how “women's” rights have been separated from and connected to “human” rights within the UN.     

Monarchical Manoeuvres: Gender,Nation and the Boundary Problem in Post-War Swedish Constitutional Development

In the years following the end of the cold war in 1989, Western feminist scholars and activists expressed disappointment in the failure of the newly democratic Eastern and Central European countries to sustain mainstream women's rights movements and achieve a marked increase in women's participation within the new political parties and political life in general. The authors, historians of Hungarian women's movements with a broad East-West perspective, offer a novel explanation for this phenomenon. Following an outline of the main stages of Hungarian women's movements and women's political participation, they focus on two instances in twentieth-century Hungarian history that resulted in a rapid transition from anti-democratic regimes to liberal, parliamentary systems: the 1918 bourgeois democratic revolution and the 1990 re-introduction of free parliamentary elections. Examining these two turning points in recent Hungarian history, separated by 70 years, as case studies of women's activism, the authors propose a new, critical re-evaluation of the notion of separate spheres, offering a timely if co-incidental comment on the recent debate in the Journal of Women's History.² Research for this article had been completed by the time of the publication of the Spring 2003 issue of the Journal of Women's History, 15 (1), devoted to "Rethinking Public and Private".     

Problematizing multiculturalism: Respect,tolerance and the limits to tolerance

The complexities of multiculturalism are discussed and it is argued that multiculturalism has to be critically defined and scrutinized in terms of respect, tolerance and the limits to tolerance. While avoiding the pitfalls of “Eurocentrism”, it is nonetheless important to recognize that there exist culturally or religiously defined beliefs, customs and practices that run counter to the basic values of society, to gender equality, and which violate women's human rights. The discussion focuses on possible conflict areas pertaining to marriage and family life, tradition‐based unequal authority systems between women and men and violence against women. The aim is to identify areas where conflicts may arise between, on the one hand, respect for women's human rights and, on the other, respect for the cultural identity of immigrant groups. The paper also suggests ways of addressing and handling this type of conflict.     

‘Big sisters’ are better domestic servants?! comments on the booming au pair business

This paper attempts to describe the present situation in the women's movement in Serbia and Montenegro and to tackle questions about its future, on the basis of a sociological study of newly formed women's groups. In the past, the women's movement in these societies has surged several times, only to be completely annulled, and its proponents falling to oblivion. Now, for the first time ever, the seeds of the movement originating from the long gone period of the socialist regime in Yugoslavia have survived the turmoil of disintegration and wars, and are germinating as women's groups and networks spring up alongside are being formed. The crucial task for the future will be strengthening this fragile and diffused network structure and laying down solid foundations for a movement with proper institutional mechanisms on a nation/state level. This investigation examined the prerequisites for this: firstly by examining the visibility and distinguishing features of women's groups and their activities in their current local environment; and secondly, by assessing activists' clear acceptance of feminist (and their groups') self-determination, which confront existing social attitudes towards feminist identities. In both respects, considerable advances towards a broader and clearer recognition of the aims and essence of women's groups' activities are identified, in spite of the ever-present traditional and ideological resistance to this type of women's engagement.     

The Limits of European-ness: Immigrant women in Fortress Europe

This article is intended to contribute to the ongoing debate on the ideological, social and political formation of a New Europe. By focusing on the position of immigrant women it examines the gendered nature of the changing configurations of cultural and social European landscapes. Two features of immigrant women's positioning are the key issues of this analysis: regulations through national and European law and ideological representation. It is argued that the debate on European citizenship should be closely linked to the question of formal and substantive and also of symbolic rights. Moreover, feminists, when using the concept of difference in this context, should be aware of the power structures underlying differentiated social positions in society. European-ness will lose its exclusive character only if it provides a solid place in the symbolic order of Europe for immigrants.     

Women's Organizations and Movements in the Commonwealth Caribbean: The Response to Global Economic Crisis in the 1980s

In this paper I explore the emergence of women's organizations and feminist consciousness in the twentieth century in the English-speaking (Commonwealth) Caribbean. The global ideas concerning women's equality from the 1960s onwards clearly informed the initiatives taken by both women and states of the Caribbean. None the less, the paper illustrates, by use of examples, the interlocked nature of women's struggles with the economic, social and political issues which preoccupy the region's population. I examine in greater detail two case studies of women's activism and mobilization around the impact of structural adjustment policies in the two territories of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. By tracing the connections between and among the organizations and initiatives of women in the region, the paper situates the feminist movement in the English-speaking Caribbean as a continuously evolving one, fusing episodic struggles in different territories, engaging women of different classes and groups, and continuously building on past experience.     

beyond emancipation: subjectivities and ethics among women in Europe's Islamic revival communities

This article addresses the complex reflections regarding gender relations expressed by women active in the contemporary Islamic revival movements in Europe (especially France and Germany). Much recent research conducted among these groups aims to counter the rather negative accounts prevailing in public discourses on gender and Islam. This literature notably argues that women's conscious turn to Islam is not necessarily a reaffirmation of male domination, but that it constitutes a possibility for agency and empowerment. However, when faced with certain ‘traditionalist’ positions defended by these women, even this well-meaning literature seems precarious, left in a state of uncertainty. Taking this puzzlement as a point of departure, this contribution aims to think about the dilemmas involved in articulating a language for women's dignity and self-realization, which competes with dominant languages of equality, individual rights and autonomy. This project is rendered even more intricate by the fact that these pious Muslim women socialized in Europe have also been partly fashioned by the liberal discourses against which they want to position themselves.     

Property and proper chastity: Women's land rights in South Asia today

Bina Agarwal's ambitious and wide‐ranging book, A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), is reviewed. Agarwal's argument is that women in South Asia should have the same land rights as men. She considers, in detail, the pervasiveness with which such land rights are absent (although they do exist in certain limited areas), why this is so, and the means by which such rights might be obtained. Among the issues raised are: the need for women's organisations at the village level, whether legislation on its own can confer genuine rights (the answer is ‘no'), how control of women's sexuality connects with male control of land, and regional differences within India (especially between North and South). The book is seen to be a magisterial study of high quality. The one criticism made of it is the implication of Agarwal's theoretical discussion that gender ideologies are determined by economic causes. This is contested.

A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia, Bina Agarwal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp.xxii + 572. £60 (hardback); £24.95 (paperback). ISBN 81 85618 63 1 and 64 X.     

the science of rape: (mis)constructions of women's trauma in evolutionary theory

The social sciences are witnessing renewed enthusiasm for sociobiological accounts of human behaviour. Feminist theory has, understandably, tended to engage cautiously with biological reasoning, because women have often been poorly served by the politics of such research. It is important, though, that feminists continue to contribute to this literature, in order to challenge problematic discourses that may emerge. The present paper seeks to analyse a domain of sociobiology that has been the focus of recent controversy: an evolutionary explanation of rape. Particular attention is given to the way in which women's traumatic experience of rape is constructed within this framework. It is argued that women's psychological pain is contorted, via the strategies of (a) diminishing women's pain and (b) ignoring their experience altogether. The operation of these two strategies is illuminated, and their practical consequences in the domains of legal reform and the depoliticization of science are evaluated.     

the reinvention of feminism in Pakistan

This article argues that there has been a significant turn in the discourse of feminist politics in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The author suggests that the rise of a new feminism – rooted in Islamic discourse, non-confrontational, privatized and personalized, whose objective is to ‘empower’ women within Islam – is not a post-9/11 development but rather a result of unresolved debates on the issue of religion within the progressive women's movement. It has been due to the accommodation of religion-based feminist arguments by the stronger secular feminist movement of the 1980s that paved the way for its own marginalization by giving feminist legitimacy to such voices. The author argues that the second wave of feminism may have become diluted in its effectiveness and support due to discriminatory religious laws, dictatorship, NGO-ization, fragmentation, co-option by the state and political parties in the same way as the global women's movement has. Yet it has been the internal inconsistency of the political strategies as well as the personal, Muslim identities of secular feminists that have allowed Islamic feminists to redefine the feminist agenda in Pakistan. This article voices the larger concern over the rise of a new generation of Islamic revivalist feminists who seek to rationalize all women's rights within the religious framework and render secular feminism irrelevant while framing the debate on women's rights exclusively around Islamic history, culture and tradition. The danger is that a debate such as this will be premised on a polarized ‘good’ vs ‘bad’ Muslim woman, such that women who abide by the liberal interpretation of theology will be pitted against those who follow a strict and literal interpretist mode and associate themselves with male religio-political discourse. This is only likely to produce a new, radicalized, religio-political feminism dominating Pakistan's political future.     

Women's Citizenship and the First World War: general remarks and a case study of women's enfranchisement in Austria and Germany

Historians' views about the impact of World War I on women's citizenship have diverged. Some scholars have emphasized that the war changed cultural understandings of suffrage due to women's patriotism and dedication to the war effort. Others have underlined that the politics of electoral reform determined whether or not women attained voting rights. Based on the cases of Austria and Germany where women were enfranchised in the context of revolutionary unrest triggered by the war, this article argues that the political process was in fact crucial. However, the claim of women's suffrage during the war is to be contextualized within a general understanding of republican citizenship and the concept of the ‘citizen soldier’. This discourse was essential to keeping the issue alive during the war. Nonetheless, further studies are still required to assess the war's impact on women and citizenship in the subjective sense of participation.